On 22 February 2009, the Academy (of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences) held its eighty-first celebration of film, generally known as the Oscars. This year resulted in a big win for Japan, who clinched the prize for best Foreign Language Film with おくりびと (Departures), directed by Yojiro Takita. Why is this win important? If you read through the award’s webpage, you’ll see that a Japanese film has previously been nominated for the award twelve times since 1956 without a single victory. So, よく頑張った, Japan!
But I want to talk about animation. In Japan, アニメーション (animation) has been abbreviated, in that Japanese way of abbreviating most long foreign words, to アニメ (anime), and the abbreviation covers every sort of animated design imaginable, from flip books to what American and global fans commonly refer to as the Japanese anime style. The fan following and global exportation of Japanese animation created anime as a visual style, one part of the grand scheme that is アニメ in Japan. Basically, アニメーション is a style/genre of film, while アニメ is a style/genre of animation.